sundance twentyeleven: week one
Jan. 27th, 2011 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chouchoottoo much time has passed, too full of things already forgotten or difficult to describe, for me to write anything but a digest of my first week at sundance. in a nutshell, i can say that i have nothing bad to report, which is, in and of itself, a triumph.
i am rooming with my favorite two sundance volunteers, and our lodging will probably never be bested by any future arrangement. the condo, whose hot tub and heated pool we have yet to test out, is walking distance to both main street and several major venues; it seems, all the screenings i have attended have been at theatres less than a mile away from where i rest my head.
for my third year, i'm working at headquarters, which is a brisk but beautiful 1.4 mile walk. i take it every morning i can, letting the snow and cold and, if it's late enough, sun, invigorate me. though i am never a morning person, i am closest to one when i am traveling, forced into strange surroundings and a different routine.
the week began with the usual hum of check-in, the part of the festival busiest for my department (when the army of vounteers arrive). i grocery shopped to supplement the completely ridiculous quantity of food i packed (assuming, somewhat accurately, that eating Well here would be a challenge). park city remained the calm before the storm--the storm of sundance--wherein traffic on main street was desolate enough for a lone camerawoman to take photographs from its precipice; where shitty bars are just shitty bars. and then all of NYC and L.A. arrive.
the first screening i attended was mad bastards, a feature for volunteers only. then came the staff party, which balanced somehow decent food (read: no Table of Hot Dogs circa 2010) and good music. my second screening, submarine, knocked my socks off.
then the festival officially began (after many of us have been in festival country for many days). which means film screenings are littered with celebrities (and thus, become difficult to get into), and every bar on main street charges an exorbitant cover ($20 to see "the best blues band you'll ever hear" or $40 to see a no-name indietronic band). when the festival is in full force, i'm generally cramming in as many films as possible, and checking in the filmmakers at their fantastic magic schwag room.
as usual, it is the filmmakers (rather than volunteers, who both receive their own outwear + accessories) that are humble, appreciative, honored. the volunteers, as a whole, are appreciative but exercise a ridiculous sense of entitlement. so it is that filmmakers--many that have worked their entire career (be it 3 years or 30) to have a film (short or feature length) accepted into the sundance film festival--who are generous (directors often giving their gear to spouses or co-producers or even lead actors), appreciative, positive.
of the filmmakers i've encountered this year, i've found the shorts and non-US directors to be the most genuine and down to earth; the "famous" ones to be nice but sometimes distracted. on day one of filmmaker check-in morgan spurlock rubbed me the wrong way, but then returned a couple times and was phenomenally nice and receptive. other directors i was so thrilled to speak with: fenton bailey and randy barbato (party monster, becoming chaz), madeline olnek, bill weber. (no akari or kevin smith. or richard ayoade, who i had planned to propose to). adam yauch talked at length with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chrissigrl, then gave her (and by proxy, us), tickets to his screening of fight for your right revisited. i met the creators of marcel the shell with shoes (also acquaintances of chrissigrl, because apparently NYC is a small town?), and they informed me that our press office even created a tiny credential pass for marcel, which jenny then demonstrated how marcel would feel about that. the director of the oregonian confessed to filming in washington and california; the director of lord byron filmed 30 miles away from where i grew up in louisiana.
recurring themes/trends in the festival: technology and us as "users" (yelp, connected, the woods), oregon or the pacific northwest (how to die in oregon, the woods, we were here, the oregonian), religion and cults (higher ground, red state, martha marcy may marlene). and then your random sprinkling of queer (pariah, becoming chaz, codependent lesbian space alien seeks same) and the arts.
i am almost burned out on documentaries. almost.
lou reed's screening of red shirley was, apparently, a private screening, premiering here as in "sundance" but not actually accepted into the festival. which means i didn't get into that, nor his "celebration of music in film" performance. oh well. there's always next year, where yet another 70s rock icon can slip through my fingers.
--
tonight, i'm attempting to see four films. wish me luck. and remind me to write about the film viewing experience being shorter than the waiting-for-tickets experience, something i apparently selectively forgot.
--
i am rooming with my favorite two sundance volunteers, and our lodging will probably never be bested by any future arrangement. the condo, whose hot tub and heated pool we have yet to test out, is walking distance to both main street and several major venues; it seems, all the screenings i have attended have been at theatres less than a mile away from where i rest my head.
for my third year, i'm working at headquarters, which is a brisk but beautiful 1.4 mile walk. i take it every morning i can, letting the snow and cold and, if it's late enough, sun, invigorate me. though i am never a morning person, i am closest to one when i am traveling, forced into strange surroundings and a different routine.
the week began with the usual hum of check-in, the part of the festival busiest for my department (when the army of vounteers arrive). i grocery shopped to supplement the completely ridiculous quantity of food i packed (assuming, somewhat accurately, that eating Well here would be a challenge). park city remained the calm before the storm--the storm of sundance--wherein traffic on main street was desolate enough for a lone camerawoman to take photographs from its precipice; where shitty bars are just shitty bars. and then all of NYC and L.A. arrive.
the first screening i attended was mad bastards, a feature for volunteers only. then came the staff party, which balanced somehow decent food (read: no Table of Hot Dogs circa 2010) and good music. my second screening, submarine, knocked my socks off.
then the festival officially began (after many of us have been in festival country for many days). which means film screenings are littered with celebrities (and thus, become difficult to get into), and every bar on main street charges an exorbitant cover ($20 to see "the best blues band you'll ever hear" or $40 to see a no-name indietronic band). when the festival is in full force, i'm generally cramming in as many films as possible, and checking in the filmmakers at their fantastic magic schwag room.
as usual, it is the filmmakers (rather than volunteers, who both receive their own outwear + accessories) that are humble, appreciative, honored. the volunteers, as a whole, are appreciative but exercise a ridiculous sense of entitlement. so it is that filmmakers--many that have worked their entire career (be it 3 years or 30) to have a film (short or feature length) accepted into the sundance film festival--who are generous (directors often giving their gear to spouses or co-producers or even lead actors), appreciative, positive.
of the filmmakers i've encountered this year, i've found the shorts and non-US directors to be the most genuine and down to earth; the "famous" ones to be nice but sometimes distracted. on day one of filmmaker check-in morgan spurlock rubbed me the wrong way, but then returned a couple times and was phenomenally nice and receptive. other directors i was so thrilled to speak with: fenton bailey and randy barbato (party monster, becoming chaz), madeline olnek, bill weber. (no akari or kevin smith. or richard ayoade, who i had planned to propose to). adam yauch talked at length with
chrissigrl, then gave her (and by proxy, us), tickets to his screening of fight for your right revisited. i met the creators of marcel the shell with shoes (also acquaintances of chrissigrl, because apparently NYC is a small town?), and they informed me that our press office even created a tiny credential pass for marcel, which jenny then demonstrated how marcel would feel about that. the director of the oregonian confessed to filming in washington and california; the director of lord byron filmed 30 miles away from where i grew up in louisiana. recurring themes/trends in the festival: technology and us as "users" (yelp, connected, the woods), oregon or the pacific northwest (how to die in oregon, the woods, we were here, the oregonian), religion and cults (higher ground, red state, martha marcy may marlene). and then your random sprinkling of queer (pariah, becoming chaz, codependent lesbian space alien seeks same) and the arts.
i am almost burned out on documentaries. almost.
lou reed's screening of red shirley was, apparently, a private screening, premiering here as in "sundance" but not actually accepted into the festival. which means i didn't get into that, nor his "celebration of music in film" performance. oh well. there's always next year, where yet another 70s rock icon can slip through my fingers.
--
tonight, i'm attempting to see four films. wish me luck. and remind me to write about the film viewing experience being shorter than the waiting-for-tickets experience, something i apparently selectively forgot.
--
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 06:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-29 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-29 03:28 am (UTC)